At any given time throughout their carer, teachers have had to put up with unruly young students.
As a mischievous knucklehead for constantly being disruptive due to my self-diagnosed attention deficit disorder, I was the cause of every teacher's headache during middle school.
One time, I said something vulgar during class and the teacher overheard me. I made no attempt in being discreet with my wisecrack, so it was not surprising that my voice carried.
This was a first, but my transgression managed to make my English teacher involuntarily chuckle.
He genuinely thought that what I said was a knee slapper, but he was disappointed in his visible reaction.
To my dismay, he sent me to the principal's office when I thought I was getting a get-out-jail card.
Knowing what educators went through in dealing with yahoos like me, I give them props for their patience, and I do regret being a distraction in the classroom.
We got to hear amusing anecdotes from teachers about students' antics when Redditor termitesinmydick asked:
"Teachers of reddit--What was your 'Oh f'k that's impressive but I still have to punish the kid' moment?"
A Dangerous Stunt
"First 6 months of teaching. Grade 8 English. Kid did a 360 on one leg of his chair. I was impressed but gave him a time-out because it was dangerous. Part of the requirement for time out was that students identify what got them sent out in the first place. 'I did a mad 360 on my chair but Miss said it wasn't safe.' I've still got that time out sheet on my desk 2.5 years later. Yes, Ethan, it was a mad 360. But it was still dangerous."
Total Nunsense
"I can't remember the question that was asked of my niece (about 6 at the time), but she stood up in the class and said 'Sister Bernadette's a b*tch' (sister as in a nun)."
"The teacher told my sister (normal sister, not a nun) that whilst she couldn't condone the behaviour, Sister Bernadette was in fact a total b*tch. They had a good laugh about it."
– sionnach
Where Is Jordan Now?
"It wasn't so much a single impressive event as it was just perfectly executed every time. This kid, Jordan, could teach a masterclass on Roasting his classmates. It was staggering how quickly he could rattle off an absolute shredded burn in response to something they said or did, and he did it in such a way that even the recipient would be in a state of awe at it. He was like an anti-hero who's primary weapon was incinerating people with words."
"Of course, as a teacher, I couldn't just let it happen and had to put on my poker face and write it up but there were some times where he'd roast some kid on something that was VERY valid. He'd say the type of thing that in any other environment where I wasn't having to lead by example, I'd just have to say, 'I mean, he's got you there.' Like I remember in one example, he basically called out this other kid for creeping on a girl in class. The exact wording escapes me, but he basically called him a peeping tom and it was 100% accurate. The class EXPLODED in laughter and this kid looked like he'd been hit in the head with a frying pan. Absolute stunner. It took all of my self-control to not burst out laughing too. And to top it all of, it never felt overly malicious. Like there was always this slight uptick in the delivery that softened the blow just enough that your immediate response wasn't anger."
"It was honestly not terribly surprising though because Jordan was also brilliantly talented as a writer and was exceptionally smart and witty. Roasting his classmates aside, he was very eloquent without it feeling performative or fake. I almost wish he'd been a worse writer so it'd have been easier to steer his creativity from roasting people into something else, but he had no shortage of mental real estate for both. I ended up losing track of him after I left, but I've no doubt that he's successful in whatever he's doing now. That, or he was just Loki in disguise."
The Joke Is On Him
"I had a classmate jump on the teachers computer and visit a website that would go full screen and make it seem like it was a Mac now instead of a PC. It was April's fools day and this was his prank. This was in like 2003, so security wasn't the conversation it is today. Anyway, he still got in trouble. The teacher got really angry and kind of yelled at him to sit down in the corner. She called in the vice principle, then the principle... then the on campus police office, and then when he was good and terrified; all four turned to him and said 'April Fools' and let let him off the hook. He got his punishment though. He was TERRIFIED."
– jdbrew
Mean Girls
"The first time I caught students cheating it was two 8th grade girls that had all of the same wrong answers on a vocabulary matching test. I pulled the girls aside after class to ask about it, and after some sheepish grins they both admitted that a third girl (their friend who was an A+ student) had fed them both incorrect answers on purpose. She screwed over her friends because she was pissed they were mooching!"
"For punishment, the first two girls got to keep their very poor test grades. The mastermind got 'your friends are mad at you' as her punishment. Natural consequences."
Violence In The Sandbox
"My husband used to work in after school care. One time he saw two kids starting to fight in the sandpit. He headed over to try to calm them down, but while he was on his way, one kid ran at the other, who just calmly flipped the first kid over his head like a textbook martial arts move. My husband said he had to stop himself from shouting 'Wow! Great job!'"
Probably Voted Most Popular
"A student in one of the schools I work at had as close to a full service bar and smoke shop set up in a couple of lockers as you can get. The lockers were located in a corner of the hallway that is easily obscured and difficult to monitor. The kid just slapped his own locks on there and nobody noticed."
"When he was caught, the lockers were found to have several makeshift shelves in them, and contained several bottles of hard liquor, some solo cups, and paper shot glasses in one of them. The other contained a backpack containing some drugga and various other drug paraphernalia for sale. The kid had quite the little enterprise going and god knows how much money he made before he got caught. I was shown pictures of what was in the locker, and I had to admit.....given what he had to work with, it was quite an impressive setup."
"Of course, I'm sure he was brought up on a significant number of charges.....but still, even the principal had to give him credit for the setup."
Phallic Fascination
"I'm an art teacher. Had a student submit his art book with a great variety of different d*ck drawings. One was an impressive 'concoction' of two cat heads as the testicles and a detailed 'furry' shaft. As is was assessment I had to ring his mother to let her know. Me: your son has handed in his assessment and it has penises drawn all over it Mother: I'm sorry you find my son's style of art offensive Me: personally I am not offended, however it does go against our school's graffiti policy."
"Edit: to clarify this was in a public school in Australia. Public schools have book policy rules and drawing giant dongs are classed under the graffiti policy on ALL property even the students own. And it is definitely a big no no on assessment - even art. The student was supposed to be creating a design for sculpture in the school, let's just say he had some interesting ideas."
Budding Salespeople
"My coworker and I discovered that one of our students was running an underground crime syndicate selling individual Icebreaker mints for 50 cents a pop. We agreed not to punish him or inform the administration, but we did confront him privately and told him he needed to stop before it got him in trouble. He had about a half dozen employees and was selling at every grade level by the time we put an end to it. Kid was a C student at best, but he's definitely going places."
– mgraunk
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